Shipping Container for Olive Mill

[rox]

My husband and I would really appreciate your help and advice on our Olive Press/Mill Project. We looked at many options and it looks like we are going to go with converting a 40 High Cube shipping container into the building to house the press. After 3 years we then intend to build a regular building probably on the same site, and move the container and use it for storage. Cost is the driving factor as just the cost for the press is going to be about $85,000, plus delivery and installation etc. Add to that the cost of a building and you can see how we need to economize to start with.

Here is a link to the site and starting photos- In Picasa make them full screen to see the labels
http://picasaweb.google.com/ProvenceOliveOil/Smaller#
We are going for a simple conversion as shown in the pic that has a couple windows and doors. I started off trying to find an expandable container but at $240,000 a pop had to drop that idea real quick. 2 photos of expandable containers are shown, one exterior one interior.

Here are a couple links to Sea Box a company that modifies containers
http://www.seabox.com/v3/modified/examples/
http://www.seabox.com/v3/modified/gallery/

I will start with several posts in order to break out the different pars of the project. In this way all you great TBNers can respond to sections of the project more easily. It took me hours to write this thing up so I could present it nice and organized.

 

[rox]

Part 2 of the project The Site
The site is nicely situated with good drainage and ready access to sewer, water and electric. You can see the pics. Perhaps I don稚 know what I don稚 know but if you have any comments or suggestions on the site please offer them. We are thinking to just bring in the container and plunk it down. Well kind of. I guess we should raise it up a little bit to prevent rainwater entering. I am looking for suggestions here. I did see a photograph of a container on wheels.
The olive crates are pretty heavy when filled like about 50lbs. It would be nice to be able to use a dolly to move them into the container building. Our neighbor has a mini excavator with forks so maybe there is an opportunity there to fork them up into the building.

I am going to try to get away with not installing a toilet as we have a nice one in the barn. We値l see if that flys or not, I think it will. I think we will have to connect to our sewer system as we will legally need a sink in the building. We will need to bring in water as well. We will also need floor drains as there tends to be a lot of mess during milling. This information is pertinent to the site I think.

 

[rox]

Part 3 of the Project the Container Building shell & cutting into it-
Since the measurements of the mill are given in meters I値l give the dimensions of the container in meters also. Since we have space the outside, the external dimensions are not as important as the inside dimensions so I will only provide the inside dimensions.
Interior Length= 12 M (Meters)
Interior Width = 2.33 M
Interior Height = 2.65 M

Cost- We have a quotation of a single use 40ft high cube container for 3,600 Euros
The single use ones mean it was only shipped one time, they are like brand new, nice paint good floors etc.

Windows and doors and holes-
3cm for electricity
3cm for water
10cm to evacuate olive paste residue
25cm to evacuate leaves
12cm cut in floor for drain
12cm cut in floor for drain
245cm wide for a roll up door
------------------------------
486 Euros is the price quoted to cut the holes

90cm wide x 200cm Tall for a Man Door
100cm x 100cm for a window
--------------------------------------
390 Euros is the price quoted to cut the holes
But actually we feel we need 4 windows

Installation Price
A Window 150 Euros
A Man door 150 Euros

I am inclined to think we need two roll up doors, 4 windows and one man door plus the cuts to bring in utilities and the holes needed to excrete the olive waste, leaves, paste, water. We would have a door company install the doors, man and overhead.

What tools are needed to cut out the openings? This is a complete mystery to us and we are hoping for a lot of input here. Exactly how is this done? What tools are used etc.

 

[rox]

I'm sorry I got his one out of order, jeesh
Part 1 of Project Flow chart of olive mill- How does it work from olive intake to olive oil output. Please see the flow attached. Additionally I値l list the steps below-

• Olives enter in crates
• Olives are weighed on a floor scale
• Olives are dumped into a DLE. A machine that removes the leaves and twigs, washes the olives and then augers them up to the hopper for crushing. The leaves exit the building via a pipe.
• Olives enter the hopper and pass on to the crusher, they are crushed pitts and all, producing olive paste.
• The olive paste moves to the maloxer which is kind of like a kneading machine, the olive paste is kneaded to tease out the olive oil from the meat of the fruit.
• The paste and oil move into a centrifuge which spins everything and the paste is extruded into a pipe with a pump and is pumped outside. The oil water mixture is moved to a decanter. (On the flow chart and schematic the decanter is not shown. Shown is a Florintine Vase which we won稚 be using.)
• The decanter separates the oil from the water. The water exists via a pipe to the outside.
• The olive oil is weighed. Interestingly the volume is oil is not determined volumetrically, instead the volume is determined by weighing the oil. They know that xx kilos of olive oil = xx liters of oil.
• The residue olive pasted is pumped outside the building and must be pumped into something. There are a lot of environmental laws on this. What the mills typically do is pump it into a fertilizer spreader and spread it out in their fields. The only fertilizer spread we have is a cone shaped one so I don稚 know if that has enough capacity or not. Plus my husband needs the wagon (connected to the PTO) on the back of the tractor to bring in the olives so we have an unresolved issue on how to deal with the residue olive paste.
• The waste water from the DLE. This isn稚 very much but we still have to eliminate it. Initially I am thinking of a dry well.
• The waste water from separating the oil and water mixture. This is kind of toxic water and needs to be handled correctly, there are regs on this. It can be used to spread on your fields as weed control, but we won稚 need weed control in November when the harvest is. We do have 3 plastic tanks at 1,000 liters each and we may just pump it into one of these tanks.

 

[rox]

Part 4 of the Project the Container Building Insulation and walls & ceiling
Insulation - We need the building insulated but don稚 have a clue. Please be specific. With your recommendations. If it requires us attaching 2 x 4痴 to the walls then what tools and screws do we need to do that? We can get the Styrofoam board type of insulation can we just glue that on? What about vapor barriers? Needed not needed? Remember this is a container so it is steel. We intend to use the building only for about 6 weeks a year but they can be cold months. We will not store our olive oil in it, we have an excellent olive work room in our basement. Don稚 forget we intend to abandon this container in about 3 years and build a proper building at which time we would use it to store farm implements probably.

Walls and ceiling- We need to cover the walls on top of the insulation with something. The regs say it has to be more or less a sealed type of thing. If we didn稚 insulate then our plain steel walls would meet regs.

 

[rox]

Part 5 of the Project the Container Building Floors
By regs the floor must be bowl shaped, in other words they want it to slant down towards the center to a drain. The floor is really important as there is always olive oil spills and leaves and junk that gets on it. I am thinking maybe just concrete. We need a floor drain down the center, like a channel. Slope from the sides to the center drain. Was just at a mill 2 days ago and saw this, the channel is about 2 inches wide. I assume the question of how we cut into the floor, which is steel covered by plywood is going to be answered in Part 3. If we wanted concrete floors how do you go about building the forms? Where the press equipment will be bolted into the floor there we want it pretty level with just a slight slope. In the pic it shows the press on a steel pallet but we won稚 be having it that way that we will be having it bolted to the floor. How thick a floor do you think we need? The press equipment will weigh about 2,000 kilos I think.

If we don稚 do concrete and instead go to tile, how does that slope get in there with tile on a plywood sub floor?

 

[rox]

Part 6 of the Project- Electric, plumbing and heating.
I知 not to worried about this part as we have a good friend who is a retired electrician. The regs say no electric on the walls or floor, all electrical outlets must be in the ceiling. Plumbing will be pretty minimal with just the floor drains, a hose bib or 2 inside and a sink. I think locally we can find the experts.

 

[rox]

Part 7 of the Project- The Mill (press)
It is gonna be tight we know width wise, but we are willing to squeeze for a couple years. Please see the attached schematic which is not 100% correct as we will eliminate the Florintene vase, the oil receiving tub off the centrifuge, and install in line with the centrifudge a decanter which will be about the same size as the centrifudge I think. This is shown in the flow chart in the part 1 thread.

 

[rox]

Part 8 of the Project Delivery of the container-
Fortunately for us another neighbor owns a moving company, quite a large one, and we will ask them to bring over a lift truck to move the container off the truck and set it in place. They have containers at their business, I have seen them. They also have olive trees and need pressing so we will do some kind of a deal I知 sure.

 

[rox]

Part 9 of the Project What have I missed????